Fly-Derived Reservoir Computing for Momentum Trading: Retrospective Evidence, Engineering Strengths, and Empirical Failures

Publication date: 2026-09-13

Contributors: Ogdn Ames

Abstract

This paper evaluates whether a fixed recurrent reservoir derived from the male Drosophila central nervous system can improve momentum-based allocation decisions. Across 2,520 scenario and model runs, the fly-derived family generally trails buy-and-hold on the assigned mean fold objective for SPY, GLD, and QQQ; a small AAPL mean-of-ratios advantage reverses under equal-capital ensemble comparison. No multiplicity-adjusted comparison establishes superiority, and strength-preserving graph nulls are generally similar or slightly better. The study demonstrates a disciplined engineering pipeline but does not establish a trading advantage attributable to fly anatomy because the evidence is retrospective, incomplete, and exposed to data-snooping and execution-assumption risks.

Keywords: reservoir computing, Drosophila connectome, momentum, quantitative trading, backtesting, data snooping, Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio

Published by Ames Investment Systems

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